"I have labored in endless fields as a farm worker for two decades. My pride and joy are my three US citizen daughters, who are all high school graduates. As a single mother, I fear being separated from my family who is my life. The pain in my joints due to extreme physical labor is nothing compared to the pain I bear for not seeing my dear handicapped brother in Mexico. I know many people who are in the same situation where loved ones have an absent seat at their funerals and there is nothing we can do. I have already had two children who have been deported. One of them was killed from the violence we fled. Family separation is a heartache I live with every day. If DAPA is implemented, I would at least know that I will stand by my girls as they achieve their dreams without the fear I live with every day as I go and return from work.”

— Maria Amalia, Kern County, CA

Kicking off a nationwide exhibition  that bravely shows the faces and tells the stories of those who’ve lived in the shadows, oftentimes in fear of deportation,  the California Table for Immigration Reform, one of the largest and oldest coalitions in California in support of policy reforms on immigration law, and a project of CHIRLA,  launched a national education effort in California and other parts of the country this week entitled “The Faces of DAPA and DACA+. The exhibit was launched this week at L.A. City hall. 

With immigrant families, the art, picture and story exhibit, coordinated with the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), runs from April 12 through June 15, 2016 in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C.

The “Faces of DAPA/DACA+” Exhibit begins just as the Supreme Court is preparing to hear oral arguments in the U.S. v. Texas case that concerns President Obama’s administrative relief programs known as DAPA and DACA Expansion.

The exhibit initiates its travel throughout the country in Los Angeles and is scheduled to end with a large, collective exhibit in Washington, DC, in June before the High Court’s decision announcement.